I don't understand how he said they became trendy. They had some of the worst produced albums in black metal and plus they were one of the first second wave black metal bands so there wasn't really a trend to follow anyways.

I've always felt this album meanders a bit too much to be a death metal classic... but it's still very, very good. This album might be flawed but it shows that Darkthrone were good at death metal as well.